Richard Gasquet Playing for Second Title in 2013

Richard Gasquet is 13-1 in 2013 and will meet 6 ft.5 in. Benoit Paire in the Montpellier final. This looks like a good opportunity for Gasquet to pick up another title against an opponent with alot less big-match experience. Gasquet brings with him the advantage of being a top French player for several years and probably a player Paire has looked up to in many respects. I'm giving Gasquet 4/1 to lift the trophy.

Great start for Richie.........first time in years he is actually playing smart and winning the matches he is supposed too. The whole French contingent looking loos....LaMonf, Simon and Tsonga playing well, Paire the baby of the group seems to be making nice strides as well.

For Richie it seems finally a strong hand by coach Ricarrdo Piatti is paying off......

impressive start for richie with titles at doha and montpellier !
15-1 so far this year (losing to tsonga at the AO)

for the moment tsonga is the only player of the top 30 he had to play, but still... it can only be good for his confidence.

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Yeah but he beat Kolja in Doha who was definitely playing top 10 level tennis (he routinely beat world #4 Ferrer on the way to the final) and he also showed remarkable mental strength (for his admittedly low standards) in that match.

When both were developing and part of the FFT Natl system they damn well did......easy that 80 to 90% of heir time on court was on clay.

Today???? Both live in Switzerland as does Gasquet and Monfils and which ever courts they use to practice close to home are most likely red clay. I've played in and around Geneva and Basel and Verbier and even the indoor courts are red clay.

No it does not. It would bore me too much to explain the true place of red clay in French tennis, but there is a reason why you rarely see (should I better say never?) an ATP top 100 french player with a game build to specifically shine on clay, as opposed to many spanish or south american players, (and please don't misunderstand me, I don't say that all spaniards or south americans are only clay specialists).

love to watch gasquet but kinda see his potential for greatness similar to stan wawrinka's. it's all about their forehand and mental toughness. WHEN those 2 factors are working (ie wawa's 12-10 in the fifth 5-setter vs. joker aussie '13) both gasquet and wawrinka are tough to deal with.... huge backhands, good hands, nice slice, underrated serves (wawa's is bigger obviously). there's nowhere to go against them.

the differences betw. the 2 are wawa attacks more and toes the baseline whereas gasquet tends to hang back and counters more from behind baseline.
when they go big on the fh side, they take it to a higher level.

gasquet's mental fortitude lately looks great and he also seems very fit. the way he came back and took down davydenko in that final on a fast hard court was remarkable. gasquet came in at the right times, didn't stay back the whole time. this is key for ritchie imo.

wawrinka had joker in the 1/4s and should've won that 2nd set. as good his bh is, he IMO should have gone to the slice SLIGHTLY MORE vs. joker at that crucial juncture when joker got in lockdown mode. the one hander IMO in inherently geared more towards shotmaking and if after 4,5, or 6 consecutive topspin strokes, it is not disrupting or doing damage, a player should use the slice/change the pace/direction. this is what i think. if you remember, wawrinka missed a few bhs by a couple of inches at crucial pts. sorry to digress from OP's topic.

looking forward to seeing how gasquet's year is (as well as stan the man's)